Kristen Diane Parker said that she began struggling with an addiction to painkillers after taking the drugs to relieve reconstructive surgery on her jaw.

The addiction — which also led her to heroin — surfaced again while she was working at Rose Medical Center as a surgical technician. She began using the drugs to cope when she got into an emotional custody dispute with her son’s father over the Christmas holiday.

She told police she diverted the powerful painkiller fentanyl that was meant for patients about to have surgery at least 15 to 20 times. She used the drug to self-medicate in order to ease her “mental addiction.”

“I knew my limit, I did not want to make it obvious to everybody that I was using,” she told police. “I knew how much it would take for me to be obvious and that someone would catch on.”

A federal magistrate judge declined to release Parker on bail during a hearing today in Denver.

Parker, who is infected with hepatitis C, is accused of stealing syringes filled with liquid pain medication meant for patients and refilling the used syringes with saline solution.

Ten patients from Rose Medical Center have since tested positive for Hep C.

Parker is infected with hepatitis C. Her HIV test results are negative.

Parker was fired in April after a drug test revealed she had taken fentanyl. She last worked at Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center in Colorado Springs.

Parker appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer wearing a gray and white striped jail jumpsuit. She cried throughout the proceeding.

“Based upon what I heard, there seems to be substantial evidence in this case that would implicate you in more or several criminal violations,” Shaffer said as he denied Parker’s release. “You truly pose a danger to the community. I understand you want to turn your life around, but the statements you made today are belied by your own behavior.”

Parker, 26, is charged with three federal drug charges: tampering with a consumer product, creating a counterfeit substance and obtaining a narcotic by deceit.

If convicted, Parker faces a maximum of 34 years in prison. However, if prosecutors can prove to a jury that she caused patients serious bodily injury or death, she could spend the rest of her life in federal prison.

Parker’s mother, father and brother attended the hearing, and her father tried to persuade the judge to let Parker out on supervised release.

But Shaffer told William Parker that he was concerned about whether she could live under his supervision because it is alleged that she was diverting drugs while living with her parents.

Parker’s attorney, Gregory Graf, argued that Parker did not know she had hepatitis C until she interviewed with Denver police on June 30.

A pre-employment medical exam she took when she was hired at Rose showed she had a “high enzyme” in the liver but Parker did not have symptoms and did not have the health insurance to follow up, Graf said.

But Mary LaFrance, a special agent with the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Investigations, interviewed the nurse who gave Parker the results of that pre-employment test and the nurse said she was clear that Parker needed to follow up with a doctor.

“She remembered the conversation and was quite upset that she heard on the news that Kristen Parker said she had never been told by Rose Medical,” LaFrance testified.

LaFrance testified there was a note in her employee health file indicating that she had been briefed and counseled by the nurse about having a reactive hepatitis C status.

“When she gave Kristen Parker the lab results, she told her that the hepatitis C results indicated she had antibodies and that the hepatitis C titer was extremely high at 23.9 when the normal range would be below 1. She advised her to see a primary-care physician.”

Parker told the nurse she did not have health insurance, LaFrance testified, but the nurse gave her the name and number of a health-care center for people who don’t have insurance.

The nurse told LaFrance that she remembers Parker because Parker did not have the typical reaction that most people do when they are given similar test results.

“She said that she had administered this counseling to several individuals before as part of her duties and most of the time, the reaction of individuals that they have hepatitis C is shock and sorrow,” LaFrance said. “When she told her, the attitude was such that, ‘Gee tell me something I don’t already know.’ She was completely emotionless.”